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Comment by wobbleblob | Hacker News Reader

It's easy to point at Germany and tell them they have only themselves to blame, for becoming so dependent on Russian gas, but aren't we in the US making the same mistake when it comes to manufactured goods? Even a slight disturbance in Chinese manufacturing due to Covid caused a massive supply chain problem here.

Imagine a scenario where China invades Taiwan. Besides losing access to about half the world's production of semi conductors, would we even be able to put sanctions on China without causing complete chaos here?

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In May 2022, Chinese officials ordered government agencies and state-backed companies to remove personal computers produced by American corporations and replace them with equipment from domestic companies.

source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-06/china-ord...

That's not what I mean. Half the world's semi conductors are made at the TSMC complex in Taiwan. If China invaded, we would lose access to those.

If china invaded there’s a good chance china would lose access to them too, as they would be destroyed

Edit: they being the TSMC

Well, a good attempt was made with the TPP.

But I think the difference is that China is more of a potential threat while Russia has long been a malicious actor. Germany should have known better and had several options they actively turned down (shuttering Nuclear plants for example).

I would not call the TPP a good attempt. While perhaps the intent was good, the attempt was terrible. The proposed ideas were so bad that neither presidential candidate in the 2016 election wanted anything to do with it. And the new president has not joined the successor (CPTPP)

Half of Germany was that "Russia" you forget.

Sanctions will always be a two-sided sword. But that doesn't mean you should not enact them, even if they hurt.

It's just about the only action short of war that might cause a party to think twice, though, in practice it tends to harm the populations much more than it ever does the leaders (who in fact may find a boost from them).

It's a blunt and imprecise tool but it's what's in the tool drawer and there isn't much else in there other than war.

>"It's easy to point at Germany and tell them they have only themselves to blame, for becoming so dependent on Russian gas"

They were stupid to shutdown their nuclear stations. That is for sure.

>"magine a scenario where China invades Taiwan. Besides losing access to about half the world's production of semi conductors, would we even be able to put sanctions on China without causing complete chaos here? "

The US and the rest of the Western world wanted cheap manufacturing. They got what they wanted. They've lifted whole bunch of Asian people out of poverty, made China a superpower, got some Western haves to get insanely rich and at the same time it allowed poor Joes Schmoes still enjoy a bit better life. It was good while it lasted. Now it seems that the love affair comes apart.

Spend decades furthering their own geopolitical goals. Now it might be turn for someone else.

Yes that's true, but for political reasons we would have to impose those sanctions and accept the chaos. Fortunately the mainstream political establishment has now recognized China as a real threat, and steps are being taken to decouple strategic industries. Hopefully some significant progress will be made before China builds up enough amphibious lift capacity to effect an invasion of Taiwan. At this point it's a race.

Taiwan is lost in terms of defending it from any Chinese invasion. The US has been on the other end of proxy wars with China (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Korea) and has not managed to win one of them, and Ukraine is a big mess for everyone involved, and the US will not be deeply involved in the future. Hong Kong is a good example of the limitations of defending Taiwan.

Being an island, Taiwan is far more defensible than Vietnam, Afghanistan, Korea, or Ukraine. Prevailing weather conditions mean that an invasion is only even possible for a few months every year, and local geography means there are only a handful of beaches and ports where an amphibious invasion force could attempt to come ashore. China could wreck Taiwan using missiles and air strikes, but China still lacks the airborne and amphibious lift that would be necessary for a successful invasion. They are building rapidly, and so that situation will probably change in a few years. But even then, the Chinese leadership would have to be willing to accept horrific losses while crossing the strait and establishing a secure beachhead.

You're standing on many legs there: no comparison between the Asia of Taiwan and your other examples. Korea was very much a draw, and China has demonstrated complete inability to make the North into anything ressembling success. Hong Kong is on the Mainland. Taiwan will be able to defend itself "on-its-own" just like Ukraine os doing. And if/when conquered will be a worthless husk.

>Taiwan will be able to defend itself "on-its-own" just like Ukraine os doing.

Except Ukraine isn't defending itself. US/NATO is defending Ukraine with billions of dollars in weapons and priceless intelligence.

One of the reasons I LOVE home solar and BEVs. It makes us so much more resilient to outages and disasters and disruptions on the critical aspects of energy, heating/cooling, and transportation.

How much would germany kill to have a robust home solar installation right now? Even if you reduce dependence buy 20-30% from previous levels, that opens options for other sourcing.

And, uh, how about people bundle up and live in chillier houses? Christ they don't even really go under freezing that much. Sleep under thicker blankets.

There's other options: crash programs for insulation. wood stoves.

But I agree, there absolutely should be a minimum local sourcing for most products. We certainly do it for agriculture effectively with trade barriers and other regulation.

These ultra-extended supply lines are outgrowths of monopoly and cartel economics which dominate our markets rather than a robust amount of competition (which would enable options as well as alternate sourcing). We need a lot more competition and antitrust enforcement. The amount of political power handed to both state powers and the monopoly companies that are their partners is outlandish and dangerous.

Despite what the sibling says which is also true, especially in winter, Germany has a lot of solar in comparison to ten years ago and depending on what you do otherwise for heating building a house requires solar (it seems a lot of people use it for hot water instead of electricity) installations. Being Germany there's lots of rules which I don't know in detail since I don't live there. But here's a quick Google result for some of it: https://www.nibe.eu/de-de/support/artikel/solaranlage#pflich...

Also a lot of landlords (corporate ones) have already announced that they will only supply heating up to 20C this winter. There's a lot of discussion about that going around i.e. people complaining about that.

> How much would germany kill to have a robust home solar installation right now?

Maybe not much killing, since solar requires consistent sunlight, which is not as prevalent in Germany.

The implication is that it's somehow better to be "self reliant" but that is also basically impossible.

The implication is that it's better to not be reliant on an adversary. Some level of reliance on reliable allies is fine.

But that would be a major challenge. Virtually all of the Asian continent save for Japan and Korea (who are reliant on the US for military purposes) in some way kept neutral and/or allied with Russia.

Only North Korea, Syria, Eritrea and Belarus decided to vote against resolution condemning Russian invasion on Ukraine.

Russia has no allies. Even China is reluctant to take over what remains from Russian market abandoned by Western companies.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1499072011729096705

It's more about being reliant on one source under the control of a potential rival.

Germany does not only "have itself to blame" - the gas relationship dates back to the Soviet Union and was supposed to work the other way around. The way Germany saw it, it was the Soviet Union that would become technologically and economically dependent on the West. It was a good plan.

After the unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union the ex-KGB people knew that this was like the one deal that could make a fortune and give them access to power. Germany was be eager to keep up their end of the deal. What Germans didn't understand is that the people on the other side of the table were not the old communist politicians but corrupt gangsters.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the entire West has only itself to blame in the way it underestimated Putin's strategic prowess and brutality. Influence is a two way road and all that.

I think that you are correct in seeing the similarities to the US-China relationship, but I don't think it's that simple. For one China isn't stupid. They will continue to do what they can to exert power in this relationship. But China is in an advantageous position right now, so they don't need to be invading anyone. What's more, the people in charge in China aren't gangsters, they're a political party with an actual ideology. That makes a big difference because these kinds of people usually aren't very eager to handle wars. What's more likely in the coming years are proxy wars and competing ambitious economic infrastructure development plans. But then again, all plans have a way of backfiring in one way or another, sooner or later so we will just have to wait and see.

It was just an example, I don't have any special insight into the China-Taiwan situation. Maybe the conflict would be over a TV show, or a sports match, who knows. It just occurs to me that if there's a situation where we cut China off, or China cuts us off, we would be in the situation Germany is in now.

China would stand to lose a lot of money in that situation, but our economy would be severely disrupted as well. Russia is showing that for a totalitarian regime, losing a lot of money may not necessarily be a complete show stopper. They could make that choice and decide it's worth it, if they don't have to worry about the polls and are able to shape the narrative their own population gets to see.

Putin and his circle endorse a culture of violence. They have stayed in power by keeping Russians in a state of terror. If anything they find it much easier to maintain their grip on power in this state of war and conflict, than in a state of peace. These people are actual gangsters - in their worldview they should be waging some sort of brutal war, otherwise who is going to be afraid of them at home?

I think the fears you have assume that the people in power in China have this villainous desire for violence just for it's own sake. But we're talking about the communist party and career politicians here. China has a 10+ year head start with their belt and road initiative. This is where they have an upper hand - it would be stupid to switch to military confrontation.

>the gas relationship dates back to the Soviet Union and was supposed to work the other way around.

You mean like the last time?

German–Soviet Trade and Credit Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Credit_A...

"expectation of eventual territorial expansion to the Baltic countries, Finland and Poland, with the approval of either the Western powers or Germany" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin's_speech_of_19_August_1...

"In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narew, Vistula, and San."

"With regard to Southeastern Europe attention is called by the Soviet side to its interest in Bessarabia (Moldova & Ukraine). The German side declares its complete political disinterestedness in these areas."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany%E2%80%93Soviet_Union_r...

Yes.

The Tariffs from 2017 remain in place on some cheap goods from China.

The Chips Act passed last week.

If the proposed legislation for energy / climate passes, it will target subsidizing domestic solar panels + cars.

The Global economy has stood for ~40-60 years.

Local/Regional economies have existed since the dawn of agriculture.

It is reasonable to assume we will regress towards the mean at some point

There has been supra regional integration (not just marginal - noticeably influencing domestic economies and politics too) since the time Roman merchants plied the Indian sea around the first century CE. I recommend reading "Boundless Sea" from Abulafia for more insight. Autocracies starve themselves to death.

The Greeks Empire was all the way to the northern borders of India. Europe and Asia have been trading for millenia along the Silk Route through India and the Indian Ocean. In fact Europe was losing money to Asia until the formation of British India, and the political turmoil in later British India was what led the UK to turn their attention to exporting tea to Boston...

The Greek (Macedonian) conquests in Asia were just a chapter in this process. Sumerians traded with India back in 2000 bce. The importance of overland silk road seems to have been overplayed by a romantic approach to late antiquity and medieval history. The volumes and values traded over sea far overshadow what trickled down via land connections where things filtered through between large regional emporia more then being traded directly. Also thesaurisation of bullion metal is a big issue all over the place not just in the relationship between Europe and China. I'd argue that the issue becomes even more prominent when we see the role of opium trade and trafficking as a way to offset the silver deficit Europe had with China in the 19th century.

I am not quite sure what that China comment is in reply to, but India was a major (if not bigger) destination for bullion in the ancient world, and the West had a deficit with India for most of history including the early years of the British Empire. India was probably the biggest trading partner for Europe in the ancient world, larger than China.

https://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/all-the-worlds-go...

>In fact Europe was losing money to Asia

Thank you for the article, very interesting read! China absorbed a lot of precious metals from Europe and elsewhere (silver more then gold as was the case with India historically). The British Empire used military force first in India and later in China, motivated in part by the precious metal deficit. And as consequent as the Raj was in the process, I mentioned China to add depth and nuance to the narrative and to illustrate that the precious metal outflow was by no means stopped by the British administration of India.

Unless people know the price and understand it first hand that global, peaceful cooperation is far superior to domestic production and petty fights.

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